Mapping with Water

I'm relatively new to mapping and I have started creating a map involving a contained environment which is entirely enclosed in a block of water - all players either travel through the underwater base (which is not filled with water) or in and out of the facility through the water itself.

I have two questions:

#1: Is it a bad thing to create a map which is about 50% water?
#2: If it is fine, is there anything special I should know about mapping with water?

But water is a major disadvantage for pyros. And demos stickies/grenades travel slow underwater.

And under water means that if you have tunnels over the top of your water and the demo is in airspace under it the stickies/grenades will still travel slow.

It would be best to fake the water on top of the tunnels (I suppose they'd be glass) by just making it really dark and have some blu lighting or something.
But that might make it hard to be outside in water that wouldn't look the same.

Thanks for your help, but I've come to realize the infeasibility of what I at first imagined - water doesn't seem to work in exactly the way I wished it would. I'm moving on to another idea, but it still implements water, so I'll learn about it nonetheless.

well actualy it would be possible to do this. sure is some challenging work, but nothing impossible.

I wouldn't go for a fifty-fifty wet/dry environment. maybe 25% of it could be underwater. you just have to make sure there is an alternative route for people who wants to avoid water.
if it's going to be in the middle of the ocean or something, creating underwater boundaries might be a serious challenge tho. you know, we don't make invisible walls anymore.

some ideas poping in my mind: some huge fishing net? or maybe walls of underwater mines... be creative, you can work it out.

If you decide to make this someday, maybe when you're more comfortable with using water, I strongly recommend you take a look at cp_aqua

But water is a major disadvantage for pyros. And demos stickies/grenades travel slow underwater.

And under water means that if you have tunnels over the top of your water and the demo is in airspace under it the stickies/grenades will still travel slow.

It would be best to fake the water on top of the tunnels (I suppose they'd be glass) by just making it really dark and have some blu lighting or something.
But that might make it hard to be outside in water that wouldn't look the same.

Click to expand...

I had an idea for an "underwater facility" map and my thought was to put the water only in the 3D skybox and any windows in the facility would look directly out into the skybox. My idea, however, didn't involve players leaving the building and being able to swim around (largely because of the reasons you mentioned).